


Les Objets Trouvés

by lily_winterwood



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Inspired by Music, M/M, Romantic Friendship, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:49:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_winterwood/pseuds/lily_winterwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The two of them – Mycroft and he – are a flamenco piece, it seems – a wild guitar melody over a strong, steady bass. Written for the Sherlock Secret Santa for <b>imaginedexperiences</b>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Les Objets Trouvés

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Balaclava](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balaclava/gifts).



“Who are you?” asks the man staring across the table from Greg in the dingy little coffee shop. They’re the only ones there. The man has ensured it.

“I could ask the same,” replies Greg, setting down his coffee cup. It’s one of the best brews he’s had in a while – the stuff they serve at Scotland Yard tastes like shit, to be frank.

“I make it my business to know people,” says the man. “Especially when it concerns the welfare of one Sherlock Holmes. What is his relationship with you?” His voice is smooth, calming – a conceit, thinks Greg, and his fists tighten a bit.

“I consult him,” the Detective Inspector says.

“There’s no need to be so upset, DI Lestrade.”

“If you already knew my name, what was all that about asking who I was?” retorts Greg.

The man smirks. “It’s sometimes better to have people retell me what I already know. You should be aware of that, in your line of work.” The smirk broadens.

Greg chuckles, shaking his head. “Of course I am. You’re pulling this much effort into interrogating me about Sherlock Holmes? I may not be him, sir, but I can tell you’re related to him.”

The man laughs, as if Greg’s a student who’s given the right answer. Greg’s eyes narrow slightly, but the man is talking again. “So, about this consultation. Precisely what do you mean by it?”

“When there are tricky cases, I call on him to lend a hand.” Greg has the feeling the man already knew. Given that the man knows his name, it isn’t too hard of an assumption to make.

“And you have no objections to consulting with a recovering drug addict?” asks the man, and Greg frowns, remembers that actually, he may have seen the man before. At the hospital, perhaps, when they’d brought in Sherlock Holmes. Pale and near death the boy had been, a shock of dark curls possibly the only sign that he was there at all in the overwhelming whiteness of the hospital sheets. The man had sat by the boy’s bed for a couple of hours and Greg had brushed past him in the hall once or twice when he went to check on Sherlock.

“He gets the job done,” Greg says. “And we check on his flat occasionally. If he’s been using again, we’ll know.”

“I doubt it,” the man says, grey eyes grave. “Sherlock has evaded me several times in the past.” Regret tinges the man’s voice, lines his face. _He must be so much younger than he appears_ , Greg thinks. _He’s an older brother, still unused to the idea that his younger brother doesn’t want to be protected anymore._

It’s a hunch. He can’t prove it like Sherlock can, but if there’s one thing he’s learnt in his time at the Met, it’s that his hunches are more often than not correct.

They discuss Sherlock for a bit. The man suggests he compensate Greg for looking out after Sherlock – although he certainly doesn’t phrase it that way. Greg laughs and denies the payment, because it’s not in his creed to take such money.

“I’m not doing this out of any sort of obligation, sir,” he says. “I’m doing it because, despite the fact that Sherlock Holmes is a prat, and an arse, and an arrogant sod who makes more enemies than friends – despite all of that, despite my co-worker’s misgivings about him, I think he can do good in this world. I think he can turn over that new leaf, and I think he can actually become a good man someday.”

The man watches him over his hands. Greg reaches for his forgotten cup of coffee.

“You think you can change him?” the man asks after a moment, steady grey gaze probing Greg’s face, almost as if trying to bare his soul for the world to see. _This man reads people_ , Greg thinks wildly, _like a book. I must be the most boring book he’s ever seen_.

“I dunno,” he says. “He’s a great man, your little brother. That much I can say. And I think he deserves a second chance.”

The man’s eyebrow rises at the revelation. “Mycroft,” he says after a moment. “Mycroft Holmes, and I’m afraid to admit you _are_ more observant than what my brother gives you credit for.”

“It was a hunch,” Greg says, reaching over to shake Mycroft’s hand. “I’m Greg, by the way.”

“I know.” Mycroft shakes his hand, and smiles simply. 

* * *

There’s the smooth, slow sound of jazz playing in the air the next time the coffee shop is empty, and this time Mycroft is drinking a cappuccino, and idly miming the motions of a guitar with his free hand. It’s such a contrast from the cold, uptight atmosphere of the first meeting that Greg has to openly resist the urge to laugh.

“Bolero de Vicente,” Mycroft says after a moment.

“Not a bad song,” Lestrade replies. It sounds like the sort of thing they’d play in a tiny little shop like this with its warm earth tones and its custom-made coffee drinks. He sips his own coffee without comment – nothing foamy or creamy about it, just straight black liquid gold – and smiles.

“Bad habits run in the Holmes family,” Mycroft remarks as Greg sets down his cup. “Affairs, assassination, intrigue. Wife versus husband, brother versus brother. Father versus son. I don’t think my father ever forgave Sherlock for revealing his affair. I don’t think Mummy has, either.”

Greg chuckles, shaking his head. “Unless this has a direct effect on Sherlock’s work ethics, I don’t see the use in bringing it up.”

“You don’t need to avoid the topic, Greg,” Mycroft replies.

“I’m not avoiding anything.”

They descend into silence. It’s slightly awkward, punctuated only by the cold clink of china as they drink their coffee in silence. Mycroft picks at his cake idly, brows furrowed. Greg finds himself watching the elder Holmes, and looks away after a moment, coughing.

Mycroft breaks the silence. “How did you figure it out, though?” He steeples his fingers, rests his chin on the tips, regards Greg like he’s the most fascinating thing since sliced toast, which was patently – last time Greg checked, at least – untrue. “Was it the cologne that you wouldn’t be caught dead in? The extra tie at the foot of the couch? The inexplicably half-drunk bottle of wine?”

His hands are shaking on the handle of his cup. “Stop it,” Greg growls.

“You have to face it sometime.” Mycroft shakes his head, stabbing absently at the cake with his fork. “Women are fickle creatures.”

“My wife can do whatever pleases her,” replies Greg stiffly, even though there’s that cold grip that seizes his heart, the chill in his stomach that no amount of coffee will chase away.

He imagines that he’ll be drinking this Friday night, but not with the mates. Mycroft looks at him shrewdly, as if he knows – he probably does – and Greg swallows thickly.

“I don’t want her to leave,” he says.

“I said that once. Didn’t stop her from deserting me at the altar,” Mycroft replies. “Caring is not an advantage, Gregory.”

“I don’t think so,” says Greg, leaning back in his chair again, listening to the calming Spanish guitar. He takes some deep breaths, trying to slow down his racing heart.

* * *

The next time they’re both at the crime scene, and Sherlock Holmes is walking away from them, side-by-side with John Watson.

“Dr Watson,” Mycroft says simply as Greg joins him by the sleek black governmental car. Greg nods.

“Not a bad bloke, I think,” he says. He doesn’t say anything about the gun-shaped bulge under the ex-Army doctor’s jumper, or how John has powder burns about his hands and was conveniently nearby when the Met had arrived. The cabbie honestly wasn’t a very nice man, after all.

“I think so, too,” agreed Mycroft. “I think he may even be beneficial to my brother.”

“What makes you think that?” Greg wonders.

“The way they look at each other. They’ve barely just met, haven’t they?”

Greg looks, and nods. “I see,” he says simply, as Mycroft’s assistant – the one who changes her name like she changes clothes – looks up from her BlackBerry. She nods; the driver of the car gets out and opens the door for her and Mycroft.

“I’ll see you soon, I think,” Mycroft tells Greg as he ducks into the car, and Greg can’t help but feel a distinct sense of lack in his chest as the car speeds away. It’s as if Mycroft has stolen a bit of him – no, all of him – and hollowed him from the inside out.

He shudders away the odd feeling, and walks away to rejoin Sally and the rest of the squad.

* * *

Mycroft’s voice is smooth, calm, collected, as if nothing ever fazes him –which is, obviously, untrue. Mycroft’s made it his life goal to appear like an emotionless iceman.

That is also untrue.

“You’re not too busy with Christmas, are you?” he says, and Greg leans back in the armchair in front of the fire – they’re at Holmes manor on the outskirts of London, and the fire is too inviting to be enjoyed selfishly. Mycroft had said as much when they encountered each other at Bart’s.

The same sort of guitar jazz is playing – Vicente Amigo, according to the playlist. Greg wonders if Mycroft’s doing it on purpose. Surely the man had deduced what Sherlock told him at the flat.

“My brother does that,” Mycroft says, and Greg realises that it’s not really deduction as it is Mycroft merely listening to him voice his thoughts aloud. He purses his lips; Mycroft laughs humourlessly at that and gets up, heads over to the sidebar, pours them both glasses of expensive-looking cognac.

“I don’t –” Greg begins, but Mycroft presses the glass into his hands.

“It’s from 1805,” replies Mycroft simply. “Vintage cognac from Massougnes. It’d be a pity to leave it undrunk.”

“1805,” repeats Greg, staring up at Mycroft. “This must be worth a fortune.”

“Obviously.” Mycroft smiles. “It was made during the Battle of Trafalgar. This is, in fact, the last bottle.”

“It’s good to know my tax money is being well-used,” deadpans Greg, but he sips anyway, tasting light hazelnut and a bit of straw, a bit of wood, a bit of the past.

“What do you think?” Mycroft hums a little as he sips from his own glass and takes a seat across from the DI.

“It’s good,” replies Greg, shrugging. “I feel like I’m drinking away my salary.”

Mycroft’s lips twitch up slightly, and Greg wonders why he can’t tear his eyes away. He clears his throat again, feeling his heartbeat quicken and his cheeks colour, and blames it on the alcohol.

“I should get a divorce,” he blurts out. Mycroft’s eyebrows fly up until they’re almost at his hairline. Greg swallows, and shakes his head. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me, Mycroft. The spark’s gone out between me and her.”

Mycroft hums, and Greg takes another sip of the extremely expensive cognac.

“She’s smart, though. She’s smart enough to know when to give up and move on. I’m not like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Mycroft replies. It’s not his fault, yet he says it anyway. His face is emotionless as he says it, but his eyes seem to say so much more. Greg wishes he knew how to deduce as well as the Holmeses. Surely Mycroft’s trying to say something, but there’s still a language barrier between them.

Greg can’t help but envy John sometimes. In the short amount of time that the good doctor has known the younger Holmes, he’d figured out that nonverbal language. It still shocks Greg a little to see the two of them working so seamlessly, from mind to heart to hand to thought, and he wishes that he could have someone like that – someone who knew him as perfectly as Sherlock and John knew each other.

He looks at Mycroft, and Mycroft smiles thinly, and Greg wishes he could convince John to write a book on understanding Holmeses. 

* * *

“He’s at _Baskerville_ ,” Mycroft says over the phone, smooth and collected as always, and miles away in Brighton Greg sighs and watches the waves lap at the beach.

“That’s still across the country, in Devonshire. Are you seriously telling me to go over _there_?”

“You’re still on holiday. I have negotiations with the Ambassador from Japan.”

Greg huffs. “He’ll suspect something.”

“Of course he will; he’s my _brother_ ,” scoffs Mycroft, and Greg notices for a moment the way ‘brother’ rolls off Mycroft’s tongue far easier than it does off Sherlock’s.

“I’ll get the next train,” he says at length, sighing as Mycroft hangs up and he is left only with the sound of waves and gulls.

Sherlock suspects things, as expected, and Greg does try to pretend that Mycroft hadn’t sent him. But Sherlock sees through everything and everyone, and as they step away from Dewer’s Hollow later that night, the younger Holmes takes Greg aside.

“You fancy my brother.” It’s not an accusation, or an expression of disgust. But the word ‘brother’ still sounds foreign coming from Sherlock, like some language he’s lost the grasp of over years of disuse. Greg’s brows furrow nonetheless.

“What are you trying to imply?” It’s almost a knee-jerk reaction to one of Sherlock’s deductions. Greg crosses his arms.

“I’m not implying anything.” Sherlock smirks. “I’m sure you enjoy his intellectual discourse and his stubbornly sedentary lifestyle very much.”

“Well, when you called him your archenemy all those years ago, I had seriously expected someone else.”

Sherlock laughs, short and harsh. “I’m the last one to tell you this but – I’m sure you’ve heard about his fiasco with that mid-level bureaucrat who’d used marriage to stab her way up the governmental ladder. If you’re in this for something like that, I recommend you get out of it while you still can.”

“We’re not…” Greg’s brows furrow, and he stops himself at the last minute from reiterating one of John’s favourite defensive phrases. Sherlock notices, of course, and hides a smirk behind his hands.

Greg swallows, and wonders what he’s gotten himself into this time.

* * *

The next time they meet Vicente Amigo is still playing, but now the tune is sad and slow, almost like an elegy. Greg stands at the doorway to Mycroft’s office, shifting from one foot to the other. Mycroft looks up from his paperwork, and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” Greg says.

“Don’t be,” Mycroft replies.

Greg enters the office, clasping his hands behind his back. “It was my fault. I consulted him.”

“You gave him another chance. The fault is mine.” Mycroft shakes his head. “I gave up on him first.”

“You did not.”

Mycroft scoffs. “Greg, what you _cannot_ see limits you _so_ much. There are lots of terrible things I have done. My own brother’s death is one of them.”

“He committed suicide. How are you to…?” Greg trails off, frowning. Mycroft’s contrite expression – well, it seemed to express a mere _shade_ of contrition, that is – speaks volumes in the silence that builds between them like a wall.

“I should be sorry,” Mycroft repeats. “It was never my intention for him to use the information like that.”

“You gave Moriarty – or Brook, or whatever his name is –”

“Moriarty.”

“You _gave_ Moriarty the information?” echoes Greg, feeling anger boil in the pit of his stomach. “Jesus, Mycroft, don’t you ever think beyond your own machinations?”

“I realised my mistake when I heard the news this morning,” Mycroft breathes, and for a brief moment Greg can see age lining his brow, burdens resting on his shoulders. How can the fate of a nation depend so heavily on a thirty-eight year old? Mycroft is just as much of a web’s centre as Moriarty was, and Sherlock was the fly entangled in both.

“Your brother is dead, his flatmate is heartbroken, and I’m about to get _sacked_.” But these feel like petty complaints now; Greg can’t feel any sort of anger towards the auburn-haired man sitting behind the desk. Mycroft nods.

“I know,” he says.

“I should be mad at you, but I don’t have the energy to do that. I don’t have the energy to do anything.” Greg rubs at his eyes, sighing. “Jesus.”

“What else can I do?” Mycroft wonders, eyes unmistakably sad – or perhaps Greg is getting better at reading him.

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t, really. He’d trusted the Holmeses. He’d taken on Sherlock when no one else at the Met would, believed in him when everyone else was quick to dismiss him. And what repayment! Sherlock’s now dead, declared a fraud, and the world is falling down around Greg’s ears and not even Mycroft has any idea how to tape it all back together.

Mycroft seems to understand, but the powerlessness still stands. “Neither do I, Greg. Sherlock can’t come back.”

Greg has the feeling Mycroft still has things to hide from him, from all of them, but he doesn’t press. He only takes a couple steps backwards before turning tail, intending on leaving the office – and Mycroft – behind –

“Greg.” Mycroft’s voice is quiet, but still commanding. Greg finds himself turning around.

Mycroft surveys him shrewdly over the tips of his fingers before shaking his head. “He can’t come back _yet_ ,” he says quietly, but the yet dangles in the air between their phrases, makes Greg’s heartbeat speed up a little more.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Sherlock. He can’t come back yet,” Mycroft looks down at his papers again. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no. Yet. The ‘yet’ part, Mycroft.” Greg steps forward again, frowning. “Are you saying what I think you are –?”

“Yes.”

“Then…” Greg’s mouth falls open. “You utter arse! Hiding this information from John? From me? From any of us? What on earth are you playing at _now_?”

“It’s for Sherlock’s own safety, and I trust that you will keep this secret from Dr Watson –”

“Screw that!” Greg’s face colours lividly. “I am done being a pawn in your silly little game, Mycroft. You claimed that caring is not an advantage – look where that got you. Not caring caused you to turn your brother into a _chess_ piece in your _game_ against Moriarty, and you sacrificed him. _Him_! Your own flesh and blood!”

“He was the first to openly engage Moriarty –”

“But you took the reins, didn’t you? Drove the game off the edge of a hospital building, didn’t you? And now you’re telling me to play by your rules and to keep John in the dark about it all? This is bloody ridiculous!”

“Greg –”

“You can go on not caring. Perhaps if someone else closer to you dies next time, you’ll understand.” Greg’s not sure why his voice is thick with tears, nor why his hands are shaking as he tries to leave. Mycroft this time doesn’t stop him, and Greg doesn’t look back.

He doesn’t tell John. Old habits die hard.

* * *

Greg sits down in his flat – his empty, empty flat, with half the accoutrements, half the décor gone. She is now gone, his wife, carrying her bags and boxes and not looking back. Smart enough to move on.

And on the contrary, Greg holds on to things with tooth and nail.

Greg’s music player – an iPod, some newfangled thing his wife had gotten him years ago – plays Vicente Amigo, and Greg closes his eyes to the sound of the guitar and _thinks_.

The two of them – Mycroft and he – are a flamenco piece, it seems – a wild guitar melody over a strong, steady bass. Mycroft may _seem_ sedentary, but he really flits from place to place, on planes and off planes, in cars and out of cars – and while legwork isn’t his division, diplomatic trips _are_ , and he flits like a bird to each different tree until he finds his way home to London, and to Greg. Steady Greg, who clings to ideals – clings to the shadows of people whose pedestals have crumbled – clings to the memories of those have hopped off their pillars and shone the spotlight of reality onto their moth-like natures. Mycroft has done the same, and their song has hit a minor tune.

Yet Greg can’t bring himself to move on. Mycroft himself seems to keep him there.

He’s half drifting between listening and sleeping, music and oblivion, when there comes a knock at the door and a buzz of his mobile, and Mycroft Holmes is _here_.

* * *

“Lost,” Mycroft says as Greg opens the door, “and found again.”

“What.” Greg frowns. He looks at Mycroft, inscrutable Mycroft, and wonders what could possibly be going on in that Machiavellian mind of his.

“You and I,” replies Mycroft, smiling. “Lost and found in each other, it seems. What did the French call it?”

“I thought _you’d_ know French.”

“And I’ve heard you lapse into it before,” replies Mycroft, and Lestrade dimly remembers the cognac. It feels like centuries ago. He feels like he’s known Mycroft far longer than that.

He coughs. “It’s ‘objets trouvés’,” he says, putting his hands in his trouser pockets, and Mycroft nods.

“Discovered objects. It fits.”

“Why?”

“Greg,” replies Mycroft quietly, “I only realised what a friendship we’ve had when I nearly lost it. You have every right to blame me for Sherlock’s ‘death’ and the cover-up.”

“That wasn’t my point. My point was your manipulation.”

“Yes, well.” Mycroft bites his lip. “That too.” He laughs sheepishly. “Caring. Such a strange thing.”

“Is it?”

“You discover it when you least expect it,” replies the elder Holmes, and Greg only realises how close they are when he can feel Mycroft’s breath against his face, and then –

And then their lips are pressed together, and Greg’s eyes have closed and he’s drawing Mycroft closer, wanting no distance between their bodies. Mycroft hums a little with laughter at that, and when they pull away, says nothing. Only smiles – and that smile is the brightest that Greg’s ever seen in their time together.

“Come in,” Greg suggests, and Mycroft steps over the threshold, and suddenly the flat isn’t so bare and sad anymore.

Suddenly, there are so many trouvailles waiting to be found.


End file.
